Amazon Kindle Fire: New Tablet To Sell For $199 (VIDEO) (PHOTOS)

This entry has been updated. Scroll down for photos.

At a press event in New York City on Wednesday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took the wraps off the company's tablet offering.

The Kindle Fire will sell for $199, will run a modified version of Google's Android operating system, will feature a 7-inch display and will be deeply integrated with Amazon's cloud storage system and its massive online content library of books, music and more. According to AllThingsD's live blog of the event, pre-orders open for the Fire on September 28; devices will ship November 15.

Ahead of the official announcement, Bezos gave Bloomberg Businessweek some of the details about the tailor-made OS and the content that will be available on the Fire.

"Amazon has painted over the rough surfaces of Google's Android operating system with a fresh and easy-to-use interface and tied the device closely to its own large and growing content library," Bloomberg explains, based on a briefing from Bezos. "Kindle Fire owners can watch the film Rio, scroll through magazines such as The New Yorker or Esquire, and access their music collection on Amazon's servers."

The device will also run a custom-built "split browser” called Amazon Silk, which "accelerates the power of the mobile device hardware by using the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services Cloud," according to a statement provided by Amazon.

"The Silk browser software resides both on Kindle Fire and on the massive server fleet that comprises the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)," Amazon's statement also reads. "With each page request, Silk dynamically determines a division of labor between the mobile hardware and Amazon EC2 (i.e. which browser sub-components run where) that takes into consideration factors like network conditions, page complexity, and cached content."

GDGT's Ryan Block notes that the WiFi-only Kindle Fire is merely a "stopgap" product, hence its pre-holiday release. Writes Block, "[M]y sources tell me the second-gen Kindle tablet [...] will be out in Q1 of 2012 -- yes, that soon."

Check out our live blog from Amazon's event to see what else the company announced on Wednesday. You can also check out photos of the new Kindles (here).

To learn more about the Kindle Fire, plus more new goodies from Amazon, visit Bloomberg Businessweek's in-depth interview with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Take a look at photos of the Kindle Fire (below).

Comments

[Ampoliros]

01:38 AM on 10/11/2011

Pretty interesting read, and bad news for the Fire if its true. Launching your color line with a rehash of a failed tablet?

http://gdgt.com/discuss/the-amazon-tablet-will-look-like-a-playbook-because-it-basically-is-g8d/

[meetsonya]

01:35 AM on 10/10/2011

That's hot! :)

http://forums.kindlefirefans.com/

[BillySOS]

09:14 PM on 09/30/2011

The real story is the Silk split browser, great use of Cloud technology.

[meetsonya]

01:35 AM on 10/10/2011

but also a PR nightmare when people start questioning its privacy...

[Johnny Rocco]

04:46 PM on 09/30/2011

I have twenty of these I use one to level my table .

[kinogod]

11:03 AM on 09/30/2011

Enough with the fire already - what, does the aeech pee get payola fir keeping this non story and plastic amazon content device as head tech story? So yesterday.

[Jack Toon]

09:25 AM on 09/30/2011

it's great photos of Amazon Kindle Fire tablet .wowowo
http://www.technews5.com/2011/09/amazon-kindle-fire-tablet-photos.html

[Gudrun]

10:39 AM on 10/02/2011

Thanks, looks sweet!

[samuraifrog37]

11:20 PM on 09/29/2011

I want more and more and more I must buy this I must buy that I'll take two I can't get enough I need a fix thank you Father may I have another buy low sell high ner give a sucker an even break.

[BillySOS]

07:17 PM on 09/29/2011

I have an iPad2 and already ordered one of these also. We could all use a little affordable luxury and Amazon content is awesome, less than the cost of dinner and drinks for two in Chicago.

[Gudrun]

05:27 PM on 10/01/2011

Exactly.

[Ogg-the-bear]

05:50 PM on 09/29/2011

Fire is too small. But I'll likely pick it up if it's as robust physically as the Kindle. I have both. My iPad is my workhorse and it stays locked up out of reach of the offspring. The kindle is the family library and has so far survived a 12 year old boy much better and less riskily than the iPad. For me the Fire may well be a "both-and" rather than an "either-or" proposition.

[Praedor]

10:29 AM on 09/29/2011

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about the Fire and its browser setup is, "Wow, spyware city!" Amazon will most definitely track your every online move and your privacy will be violated well beyond what Facebook pulls. Using the "Amazon Cloud" is a sure way for any and all your data, browsing habits, purchasing habits, to become the "property" of Amazon.

I know the younger crowd would be more than happy to have Big Brother slipping cameras into their bedrooms, bathrooms, reading their email, snail mail, diaries, etc, but some people still actually believe they have a right to privacy and go about protecting it. Big Brother is evil be he govt OR corporate. It is all the same. I'll pass on this underpowered spyware toy.

[alone ranger]

07:35 AM on 09/29/2011

I"m sure Amazon is already working on the next fire tablet edition. this first version......just isnt going to do it..........

[William Robert Kent Cous]

12:59 AM on 09/30/2011

It's nice, but it's lacking some important hardware:
1. Bluetooth
2. GPS
3. SDHC/SDXC card reader
4. Cameras (front and rear).
5. Only 512mb RAM. They'll need at least 1gb for Honeycomb and Ice Cream
6 3G/4G

But for the price, you really can't complain. You can't find a better tablet for $199.

[Ampoliros]

01:34 AM on 10/11/2011

Yeah but you can find much better tablets for $50-100 more.

[kejavas]

05:44 AM on 09/29/2011

I have been looking and want a light i-pad type to use when I travel. I looked at the Samsung and the HP competitors and am thinking of buying one of them because they take a flash drive, ives me PC-Excel, Word and Power Point and I can also watch movies on the airplane and get 32G with the extra memory chip. Possibly can you tell me if what I am looking at will open pdf's as well and support desktop publishing? Thanks

[Gudrun]

05:29 PM on 10/01/2011

I saw in their description on Amazon that yes, you can open pdf's on it. I don't know about desktop publishing.

[zeutern]

02:20 AM on 09/29/2011

This is not an iPad competitor.
It does, however, fill a niche to folks who do not want to shell out the $500~600 for an iPad.

[jwcmass]

02:52 AM on 09/29/2011

The only thing that would draw me to an I-Pad is the fact that my favorite astronomy program is not available anywhere else.

[meetsonya]

01:37 AM on 10/10/2011

precisely!

[FreedomBeforeSecurity]

12:45 AM on 09/29/2011

My question when new tablets come out is always..... can it open/edit PDF's and will it support open desktop publishing?

Also, in this case, will I be able to encrypt my content so that not even Amazon can read it? Can't have them data-mining my journal.

[Dax Grantham]

12:21 AM on 09/29/2011

An iPad for those who either wont buy an apple product or cannot afford one.

[indigo1]

01:22 AM on 09/29/2011

Bingo!!

[wilray]

03:30 PM on 09/29/2011

That pretty much covers anybody for any product.